She jogged the last bit toward Main 1 and, skipping the elevator, took the steps up to the top floor where the nursery was located. She signed in, checking her wristband, which was purple, against the sheet and finding that she was in the right place at the right time. She used her key card, which all the parents and staff wore around their necks, and scanned herself into the room, where, as always, she was temporarily stunned into paralysis. It was overwhelming at first, the room swirling with activity, ten babies hidden throughout the space, so much unadorned need radiating out toward Izzy. It always took her a few seconds to accept this responsibility before she could work to meet it.
Dr. Patterson was in charge of the room today, and Izzy appreciated her presence. Of the three postdocs, Izzy felt most comfortable with Jill, who was the least formal, the one most willing to admit the strangeness of the situation and yet attempt to figure out how to work with it toward something productive. Dr. Washington was so aloof and serious that it was difficult for Izzy to ever know what he was thinking, if he even believed the project was worthwhile, and Kalina, though so kind to Izzy, sometimes had the opposite effect, of being so deeply assured of the project’s superiority that it was impossible to suggest otherwise. Dr. Patterson was the happy medium, and that’s all that Izzy desired, something that kept her from intense emotional swings.
Along with the doctor, there were four caregivers, highly trained and with all the necessary health certifications, as well as backgrounds in early childhood development. These three women and one man were local, from either La Vergne or from Nashville, and they seemed, at least to Izzy, to accept the unique circumstances of The IFP. In fact, they seemed fairly excited for the opportunity, and Izzy was often amazed by how calmly and easily they navigated the day-to-day activities required to keep ten six-month-old babies alive and thriving. She waved hi to Dr. Patterson, who was playing on the floor with Marnie, a cute little girl with a red birthmark on her forehead, who was gamely trying to remain upright while Dr. Patterson handed her various colored foam shapes. Eliza, the biggest of the babies, an Amazon in a diaper, was lying on her back, her ice blue eyes wide open as Shonda, one of the caregivers, sprinkled bits of red construction paper over her, the pieces floating through the air, Eliza’s legs kicking in excitement. Izzy could detect the buzzing of the babies, like a machine; their happiness, to Izzy’s ears, was so close to mania that she worried when it might tip over into wailing.
Izzy had noted from the clipboard that Nina, who was twenty-two and one of the youngest people in the family, and Jeremy, the oldest person in the family at thirty-six, were the other two parents in attendance for the next three-hour shift. Jeremy, ruggedly handsome like the Marlboro Man, was already holding Maxwell, Kenny and Carmen’s boy, who was rubbing against the grain of Jeremy’s stubbly beard. Izzy checked the dry-erase board that held the names of all ten babies to see who was asleep, who was already being attended to, and who was waiting for a caregiver. Her own son, Cap, was sleeping, as were Lulu and Eli, and the other three caregivers were each with a child, which left only Jackie, who was reclining in the automatic swing. Jackie was Asean and Nikisha’s daughter, a baby with a perpetual look of practiced skepticism, and Izzy crawled on the floor, in Jackie’s line of vision, until the baby noticed her and began to hold out her hands. Izzy scooped her up and bounced the baby on her hip, cooing until Jackie’s raised eyebrows softened and she had accepted Izzy’s presence.
Just then, Nina showed up and waved to Izzy before going to sign herself in. Her son, Gilberto, was with Marcus, another caregiver, who was reading to him from a floppy, fabric storybook filled with objects that the baby observed and then discarded. Instead of going to see her son, she followed Dr. Grind’s suggestion and spent her first hour working with one of the other children, joining one of the caregivers to change Irene’s diaper and then helping the baby practice rolling over. Sonny Rollins was playing softly over the speakers in the room, and Izzy set Jackie on the floor and did some object permanence exercises with some balls and cubes, which lasted for almost thirty minutes, Izzy continually amazed by the attention spans of babies; she had always imagined them as twitchy kittens, their eyes forever darting toward some new prey.
Izzy then switched with Christie, a caregiver who had also been working with the parents to teach them sign language, and took watch over Ally, a pale, blond-haired, blue-eyed baby who smiled with obvious excitement when she saw Izzy. Ally was hungry, nuzzling Izzy the moment she picked up the child, so Izzy went to the dry-erase board, saw that it was time to feed Ally, and then carried the baby over to the milk bank, where she signed out a bottle that had been pumped by Alyssa, Ally’s mom.